Wrong way. That's what I'm going to call the ride we did today. Last night I made arrangements to go ride with a friend of mine in his neck of the woods this afternoon. I drove down to his place, we hopped on our bikes, and off we went. The ride started a little rocky. My achilles tendons were both really sore from my run yesterday so the first 2 miles or so were spent trying to stretch those out. Once I had stretched them out and warmed up, things were looking good.
The route that my friend had planned quickly got thrown off course. Literally. We were supposed to cross a bridge that was out, so we had to continue down a road to find another way across the river. When we got there, we crossed, and it turned out the new route was really great! We had some slight hills to struggle over, but no big deal, really. I was enjoying myself and we were flying around the roads next to horse farms, big fields, and through trees that felt like tunnels. We were really excited to be finding some new roads to head out on with beautiful views.
The first wrong turn wasn't so much a wrong turn as it was we were lost. We ended up riding to a town very far south of where we had thought we were. I was concerned about how much water we had left, so we stopped at a Rite Aid to grab some water and ask directions. I got 3L of water to share with my buddy and asked the girl at the counter which way we needed to go. She had no idea. I can't blame her, she looked like she was about 14. She called her manager to come help me, who gave me a general direction which was all we needed. Wrong.
Our second wrong turn was when we decided to back track to find our way back home. We decided to avoid a bridge that we had gone over on the way to Rite Aid and go right. That road turned into gravel. We tried to go through it, but about a quarter mile in, it didn't look like it was going to change so we turned around and went back to the bridge we tried to avoid and back tracked farther.
Our third wrong turn occurred when we took a road to avoid a hill. Although the road we took ended up becoming a hill. When we got to the top of the hill, which must have been a mile long or so, we came up to a highway and saw no way to go across or ride on it, so we tucked our tails between our legs and went back down to where we were and started back on the road we tried to avoid.
Our fourth wrong turn was by far the worst wrong turn. We climbed a 2 mile hill that had us suffering big time. We thought for sure this time we were on the right route home. It looked good and both of us knew for sure we were heading in the right direction. I got to the very top of this hill and saw a guy running, so I asked him for directions. He told me were were heading towards Wilmington, DE. Not exactly the small town in PA we were looking for. Shit. He gave me directions that included about 12 turns to find our way back. I thanked him just as my friend was finishing his ascent, and tried to relay the directions to my buddy. Remember, my friend doesn't know where we are, and since it's his neck of the woods, I have absolutely no idea where we are. So we head back down this monster hill, blowing past the runner and thanking him again. Once we got to the bottom, we make a turn and end up right where we had started the hell. Great. We find a numbered road that I had heard the runner mention, and followed it a little bit. My friend wasn't too sure about where we were headed, so he went into a garden store to ask for directions. When he heard them, he knew exactly how to get home, but we ended up going another 5-7 miles to get back home.
Oh well. The moral of the story, I guess, is to take the challenges that come rather than avoiding them... it just makes things twice as hard.
Ride stats:
Time: 3:00:08
Dist: 41.69
Avg Spd: 13.8
Max Spd: 35.8
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